A Spatial Analysis of Walkability: The Case of Tehran District 6

The importance of physical exercise as an essential factor for urban healthy life and welfare is currently well documented. As a result, the walkability of urban settings gains increasing importance in current planning practices. Nevertheless, there is no standard reliable methodology for assessing walkability of urban environments. This paper attempts to identify and apply such a methodology using District 6 of Tehran metropolitan area as a sample study case. To this end, first the physical properties of this district were fed into a geographic information system (GIS).Then, a set of walkability criteria were selected through a literature survey on this subject. The main set of criteria includes residential density, continuity of access network, mixed use and access to public transportation network, for each of which a GIS layer was formed. Using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, these layers were weighted and combined at neighborhood level. The resulting map shows the overall walkability in diverse areas of district 6.
The advantages of this methodology lie in the fact that it employs: all relevant walkability criteria and their subsets; a sound weighted rating methodology for combination of these criteria; and geo-referenced polygons based on urban physical properties rather than simple circles based on recommended radii.